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Media Representation Essay

Decent Essays

The majority of cast members in movies, and television shows, from the past and modern day seem to all share one thing in common: they are straight, white, and male. Once one becomes aware, it is not difficult to notice this everywhere. What is being noticed is the severe lack of well written, and well represented people of color, women, and members of the LGBT+ community. Representation, according to Rick Beach, is “the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological perspective.” This means there is usually only good representation for majorities, and bad representation for minorities. Normally, this means stereotypes are played up about people of color, women, …show more content…

Now, especially in 2015, it seems as if more television shows have good representation. Shows like Elementary, Call of the Midwife, Sleepy Hollow, Orphan Black, and The 100 show women, people of color, and members or the LGBT+ communities in important roles, and positive lights (Tang). Nellie Andreeva in the article “Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings”, talks about the “noticeable shift towards minority casting” in late 2014, and early 2015, and how casting agents are now able to say how despite people of color once being rejected for almost any role on television they “feel like the tide has turned” and that they can now “pitch any actor for any role and [they] think that’s good.” However, now, with the introduction of more female writers and producers on television, it seems as if they may be part of the reason why this is happening. Shonda Rhimes, executive producer for popular diverse shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder, “says she isn’t ‘diversifying’ television, she’s ‘normalizing’ it” (Williams). On a different level, Rebecca Sugar, writer of Steven Universe, has made her show quite diverse as well. Mey writes, “the three main characters (besides Steven) are all voiced by women of color, and (like Steven) it is easy to interpret [them] as people of color.” James Michael-Nichols on Huffington Post also writes that the show contains very “heavy queer overtones.” This means not only is Steven Universe a good role model for children, but that it also contains just about any type of diversity with a cast of mostly women and people of color, and characters that represent the LGBT+ community. This easily makes it one of the most diverse cartoons currently being aired on television. Overall, while it may not seem like a trend in the media, the introduction of new television shows containing diverse

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